Nintendo’s first arcade video games were, to be honest, pretty terrible. Way more interesting were the machines that came before those, starting with 1973's Laser Clay Shooting System, an elaborate entertainment offering that nearly sunk the company (but also led to one of its most famous video games).

Once in a while, you hear an old war story that restores your faith in humanity. Usually it involves a moment of quiet in the midst of chaos; some singing or the sharing of a few condiments. But how many of them take place in mid air?

I run the Fine Art feature on Kotaku because it’s an aspect of the creative process that I have a big interest in, and the utmost respect for. Indeed, there was a point in my life where I hit a fairly substantial crossroads, and if I hadn’t gone down the path that led me here, I’d have ended up pursuing a career in…

The holiday season has officially begun, and of course the holidays are a time for families. But science fiction and fantasy readers know that families come in all shapes and configurations. Here are 30 of the most wonderfully alternative families in science fiction and fantasy.

We all agree that, no matter where you stand politically, it’s a good thing to “support the troops.” But what if, instead of defending our freedom, the troops were playing football games with terrorists? That’s the question posed by one particular episode of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, titled “Pigskin Commandos.”…

Clara’s time on Doctor Who is coming to an end—no spoilers here—and it’s bumming us out. But she’s not the first companion to leave the Doctor’s side in a totally bummer fashion. Here are the 10 most depressing companion departures, until now.

Science fiction has rocked cinemas for a century, and the genre has produced many undisputed classics during that time. But which movies are essential viewing for anyone interested in the genre? We broke down the 50 must-watch science fiction films.

Jailbreaking is a process that changes little by little with each iOS upgrade. Rather than always publishing new guides, we’re simply going to keep this one up to date. If you want to jailbreak your iOS device, you’ve come to the right page.

You want a really weird ride? A science fiction or fantasy epic that stretches your brain like taffy and ties it into strange irregular shapes? Forget television or movies: books are where the really off-kilter stories are told in speculative fiction.

Science fiction and fantasy are genres where almost anything can happen — as long as the author can make it seem plausible, and as long as it’s part of a good story. But that doesn’t mean there are no rules. If anything, the fact that these genres are so wide open mean that there are tons of rules out there, some…

Making aliens look cute is a tricky thing to get right in kids’ entertainment. Make them too weird-looking, and you could freak out your audience. Make them too adorable, and you run the risk of them looking more like plush toys than creatures from another planet. And then sometimes you make them look cute... but…

A perfectly serviceable alarm clock and timer comes with your Android phone, so you might not think to download another one. That may be true, but if you’re looking for more features, more customization options, and more powerful alarms than your stock clock comes with, Gentle Alarm is here—and we think it’s the best.

Look, drinking all day is not healthy. But what if you and the missus signed up for a nine-hour Napa County wine tour, and you want to get your money’s worth? Or maybe you’re hitting your bachelor pal’s BBQ, and the action starts at noon. Or, maybe, what the hell, you just want to go all out on a hot summer day. This…

Space colonization has reached an impasse, for reasons far more fundamental than a lack of money for the Space Shuttle program. There is simply no way humans can travel easily offworld without using massive amounts of rocket fuel to escape the gravity well — and that’s both expensive and environmentally unsustainable.…

Regardless of which end of whatever pond you’re on, region blocked content is annoying. Whether you’re an ex-pat looking to watch reruns of The Wonder Years, or you’re hankering for a dose of Dr. Who, here’s the best (and easiest) way to get that content.

Mad Max is a movie about a post-disaster world, and its success has inspired oodles of disastrously bad films. Witness Grade-Z movies so epically execrable that you’ll be yearning for a couple minutes in Thunderdome.

Taxidermy is a skill and art form that many think is plenty weird all on its own, even though it was practiced by luminaries like Charles Darwin and Theodore Roosevelt. It stretches from the lows of PT Barnum’s Feejee Mermaid to the highs of the myriad museums of natural history to the macabre artistry of rogue…